Location: Singapore

We’re in Singapore! Cue freak out. I’ve been wanting to see Singapore for years so I was just buzzing with excitement and every few minutes just manically looked at Max like oh my god we’re going. It’s would be accurate to say that I like to arrive at the airport pretty early- but today I’ll admit that arriving four hours before our flight might have been a bit much. My excitement resulted in this punctuality don’t judge me! The flight wasn’t even four hours long… whoops!

As soon as we got here we both sighed so heavily. Drinkable water? Hot water?! Reliable food!?! ORGANIZED TRANSIT!? Yayyyyyy!

We made it to the Tree In Lodge hostel and were greeted by Yong, the most insanely helpful fast talking hostel employee I’ve ever met. He sat us down and gave us more recommendations for our stay than we could ever hope to do- although that’s not gonna stop us itchy-footed travellers from trying.

With this in mind we stepped out into the streets to get our first taste. We’re staying in an area called Kampong Glam, which is essentially the Muslim quarter. Right at the end of our street is the golden domed Sultan Mosque that leads onto multiple streets filled with eclectic graffiti, Islamic fabric and carpet shops, little hipster restaurants, bars, and boutiques. Each building was right up against the next, painted in beautiful rich colours, with old Victorian windows on the second floor decorated with coloured shutters and frames. We stopped to grab dinner at Zam Zam, an Indian restaurant recommended by Yong. I have no idea what we ordered when we essentially randomly pointed at the menu, but my god if it wasn’t the tastiest Indian food I’ve ever had. It felt like dinner and a show what with Max saying how amazing the food was while sweating through the spiciness of it and smiling through gritted teeth!

We were also told to stop in at a particular Bhai Sarbat stall for some milk tea. Don’t get this confused with Taiwanese Sugar Milk Tea oooooh no. This was legitimate Masala Chai tea. Fresh spices mixed with condensed milk and hot steeped tea?

Absolutely incredible.

I think we will be replacing coffee with masala chai’s while we’re here. Scratch that I know we will.

We stopped into cutesy little shops filled with clothes, pop culture art, board games, purses, you name it. Max was happy to be browsing board games again- although he has yet to find one he hasn’t heard of here despite going into three different stores selling them. The bright (sometimes glow in the dark!) graffiti was everywhere, while musicians hired to play outside restaurants belted out covers at every new alleyway. We ducked in a tattoo shop to look at some art, an ice cream shop to get a ‘milo monster’ sundae (a milo is like a better Oreo. Fight me.) and a few local boutiques. We both agreed we just have to come back in the daylight to see it all again.

We came back to the hostel and settled in, since we’ve got a jam-packed day tomorrow and need to be well rested!

Here we go!

Sav